March 19, 2023 — Salmon season is closed for all of 2023. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife says the drought from recent years limited salmon’s ability to breed, and now there aren’t enough to open the commercial season. Salmon fishers say it is a massive financial burden.
“We have crews that depend on us, we have families to feed,” said Sarah Bates, a salmon fisher based in San Francisco. “I am not exactly sure what we are going to do this summer. It makes me nervous.”
March 15, 2023 — A local crab fisherman has come up with a simple idea that could allow crab pots to remain at sea while keeping migrating whales safe.
Crab fisherman who also fish for salmon during the year are facing double trouble.
Several fishing industry representatives say the upcoming salmon fishing season will likely be closed the entire year because of low counts. A decision is expected within weeks.
Now the crab season scheduled to end in June could be cut short.
However, there is a proposal that could lengthen the next crab season that fishermen say addresses the ongoing issue of whale entanglements.
March 11, 2023 — The sight of his charter boat, Salty Lady, propped up on blocks in a Richmond boat repair seemed the perfect metaphor for Captain Jared Davis’ upcoming salmon fishing season — up in the air.
With the biologists in California projecting a record low return of Fall chinook – or King salmon – Davis’ prospects of getting to fish this year were about as empty as his nets.
“The numbers are pretty clear,” said Davis who operates out of Sausalito, “I don’t see how there could be any other options aside from having a completely closed season this year.”
Fishing regulators are likely to come to the same conclusion. On Friday, the Pacific Fisheries Management Council is set to release its fishing options for the upcoming commercial and recreational salmon seasons which normally begin in May. But most in the industry expect the council to recommend closing the entire salmon fishing season for the first time since 2008, and only the second time in history.
March 6, 2023 — With more bad news forecast for California salmon, several fishing advocacy groups called Friday for the state to impose an immediate closure of the 2023 salmon season and seek federal assistance for a fishery disaster.
In a joint statement the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations, the Golden Gate Fishermen’s Association, and the Northern California Guides and Sportsmen’s Association said Gov. Gavin Newsom with the state legislature and agencies must ask for “disaster assistance funding for affected ocean and inland commercial operators.”
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife held its annual pre-season briefing March 1 “and reported some of the worst fisheries numbers in the history of the state. These numbers follow years of drought, poor water management decisions by federal and state managers, occasional failure to meet hatchery egg mitigation goals, inaccurate season modeling, and the inability of fisheries managers to meet their own mandated escapement goals,” the fishing groups said.
“Unfortunately, we have gotten to a point that we have been warning was coming; another collapse of our iconic salmon fisheries”, said George Bradshaw, president of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations. “The harvest models, escapement goals and model inaccuracies show there is no warranted opportunity to harvest chinook salmon in the state of California in 2023.”
February 28, 2023 — Delays in the season, half gear restrictions and low prices from a flooded market are some of the biggest concerns of the crabbing season from the fishermen out of Pillar Point Harbor.
Captain Mike Burian, who fishes under the vessel, Prime Time out of Pillar Point Harbor, bought a boat last year when it sounded like a good deal; however, his dream of running a profitable crabbing and salmon boat quickly turned into a nightmare after multiple delays in the season and various obstacles made it increasingly difficult to turn a profit.
“I always wanted to do this and someone was selling the vessel, pods and permits and I thought it was a good idea at the time,” Burian said. “If I did well, I was going to do it full time and fish for salmon as well; but, at this time, there is no way to make a living with this as far as I can see.”
The storm only made things more difficult because the high winds and waves buried some of the crab in the pots, suffocating and killing some of the crustaceans, he added.
“It’s a nightmare. I did not plan on this at all when I purchased the vessel, but if I don’t sell it I will be forced to do it again next year,” Burian said.
January 27, 2023 — In response to a petition by the Native Fish Society, Center for Biological Diversity and Umpqua Watersheds, the National Marine Fisheries Service determined today that the Oregon Coast and southern Oregon/Northern California Coast Chinook salmon may warrant protection under the Endangered Species Act.
“I’m pleased that Chinook salmon in Oregon and Northern California are that much closer to being protected under the Endangered Species Act,” said Meg Townsend, freshwater attorney at the Center. “These giants among Pacific salmon are irreplaceable icons of the Pacific Northwest. Chinooks bring important nutrients from the ocean to our forests, feed endangered Southern Resident orcas, and are a source of food and admiration for communities up and down the coast.”
Chinook are anadromous, returning from the ocean to the freshwater streams where they were born to reproduce. The Oregon and California Chinook salmon populations contain both early and late-run variants, otherwise known as spring-run and fall-run Chinook salmon.
Spring-run Chinook salmon enter coastal rivers from the ocean in the spring and migrate upstream as they mature, holding in deep pools in rivers through the summer, and spawning in early fall in the upper reaches of watersheds. Conversely, fall-run Chinook enter the rivers in the fall and spawn shortly thereafter.
January 12, 2023 — The National Marine Fisheries Service announced Wednesday that the Oregon Coast and southern Oregon/Northern California Coast Chinook salmon may need protection under the Endangered Species Act.
This comes as a response to a petition filed by the Native Fish Society, Center for Biological Diversity, and Umpqua Watersheds back in August of last year.
The service said it will review whether Chinook salmon should be listed as an Endangered Species.
“I’m pleased that Chinook salmon in Oregon and Northern California are that much closer to being protected under the Endangered Species Act,” said Meg Townsend, freshwater attorney at the Center.
January 10, 2023 — The following transcript is from an NPR interview:
California is charging ahead with plans for floating wind turbines miles off its coastline. A federal lease auction took place last month, a first for the state. The future turbines will generate enough wind to power 1.5 million homes. From member station KQED, Kevin Stark reports.
KEVIN STARK, BYLINE: California’s coast – rocky bluffs running into green-black water and a completely empty horizon.
(SOUNDBITE OF WAVES CRASHING)
STARK: In the coming years, about 20 miles off the coast, state plans for two clusters of wind turbines on floating platforms. For the Biden administration, it’s a cornerstone of its ambitious climate plan. For Jeff Hunerlach, it means jobs for his members.
January 5, 2022 — For years large-mesh drift gillnets used in the California swordfish fishery have faced scrutiny from government regulators and environmental groups for historically high bycatch rates. Now with the passage of the federal Driftnet Modernization and Bycatch Reduction Act, the gear type is set to be phased out over the next five years.
The act was passed as part of $1.7 trillion federal omnibus spending bill signed into law by President Joe Biden in the final days of 2022.
A federal ban was first passed by both chambers of Congress as a standalone bill in 2020 but was subject to the final veto of Donald Trump’s presidency. The bill was reintroduced by Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.) in 2021 and was included in the 4,155-page spending bill that will finance the federal government through September.
The legislation also includes grants to the remaining large-drift gillnet permit holders to cover the cost of permits, the forfeiture of existing fishing gear, and the acquisition of alternative fishing gear, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
The large-mesh drift gillnets have been on the decline for decades, peaking in 1988 and 1989 with 10,000 sets made each year with more than 200 active permits, according to NOAA Fisheries. But in the 2020-21 and 2021-22 season just seven large-mesh drift gillnet permits—out of a total of 25 federal permits—were active. Large-mesh drift gillnets are only allowed off the coast of California and Oregon and are prohibited everywhere else in United States waters over environmental concerns.
January 4, 2022 — They’ve been pushed to the brink of extinction by dams, drought, extreme heat and even the flare of wildfires, but now California’s endangered winter-run Chinook salmon appear to be facing an entirely new threat—their own ravenous hunger for anchovies.
After the worst spawning season ever in 2022, scientists now suspect the species’ precipitous decline is being driven by its ocean diet.
Researchers hypothesize that the salmon are feasting too heavily on anchovies, a fish that is now swarming the California coast in record numbers. Unfortunately for the salmon, anchovies carry an enzyme called thiaminase, which breaks down thiamine—a vitamin that is essential to cell function in all living things.
“These are fish that returned to the river early this year and then spawned in the spring and early summer. They had really low thiamine,” said Nate Mantua, a fisheries researcher with the National Marine Fisheries Service in Santa Cruz. Concentrations were “worse than last year.”
In humans, a critical deficiency of thiamine, or vitamin B1, can lead to heart failure and nerve damage. In female salmon that are returning to rivers and streams to spawn, thiamine deficiency can be passed on to their many hatchlings, which suffer problems swimming and experience high rates of death, researchers say.
Now, with government agencies and Native American tribes fearing the collapse of the winter-run Chinook, scientists are embarking on a campaign to determine why the anchovy population has exploded off the California coast, and why winter-run Chinook are seemingly ignoring all other prey.
“The very unusual thing about their diet is that it’s been so focused on anchovies and so lacking in other things that historically they have been found eating,” Mantua said. “It is something we don’t have great information on.”